At think tank Atlantic Council – Media mogul Rupert Murdoch, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Atlantic Council president Frederick Kempe and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Introduction

Think Tanks are powerful organizations that set the policy agenda in the United States and in many other countries. The big think tanks such as Council on Foreign Relations, Brookings Institution, American Enterprise Institute etc decide both the domestic and foreign policy of the United States. Other purposes think tanks serve includes providing the personnel for the administration after an election, people who are members of these big think tanks, go on to hold important positions in the government.
Here is an overview of think tanks.

Table of Contents:

1. What are think tanks and their Importance2. Classifying think tanks3. History of think tanks4. Funding of think tanks5. Think tank Personnel6. Think tanks market their Ideas7. Some of the key think tanks

What are think tanks and their Importance

Think tanks are organizations that conduct research and devise public policies. Think tanks apart from research are also involved in advocacy of their recommended policies. Think Tanks are also called policy institutes and policy making organizations. They research a wide range of topics such as economics, education, health policy, foreign policy, resources and energy policy, defense, population issues, urbanization, scientific policies etc. In fact hundreds of these think tanks research all areas concerning both politics and society. Think tanks are mostly private and nonprofit organizations. According to the 2016 Global Go To Think Tank Index (GGTTI) report, there are about 6846 think tanks around the globe, most of them are located in the US (1835). Think tanks are not homogeneous and vary in terms of size, structure, budget, scope and impact. Name of some of the prominent think tanks are RAND Corporation, Brookings Institution, Council on Foreign Relations, Club of Rome, Hudson Institute, Atlantic Council.

GGTTI Report showing total think tanks and their distribution.

The word think tank was popularized in the late 1950s to mention policy research organizations. The word has its origin in World War II, where the name was used to refer rooms where strategists discussed war planning.
Here is another description from university of Oxford –
Think tanks are public policy research institutes that seek to play a key role in making and influencing global, regional and national policy. While each think tank serves a specific purpose, they all share a common vision to improve their respective spectrums, as well as being sources of new ideas and research.Think tanks engage in research and advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, the economy, the environment, science and technology, industrial or business policies, military analysis, and many more. Think tank researchers influence public opinion and public policy, which is a different focus from traditional academic research at a university. (source-https://www.careers.ox.ac.uk/think-tanks/)

Think tanks play a central role in the policy making process. Think tanks have often been called factory of ideas and policy mills. Think tanks are essential for the elite’s research and planning.
Think tanks provide the research, analysis, strategies and solutions concerning a wide variety of topics and issues. These elitist think tanks like CFR, AEI, Brookings keep on working on the micro and macro levels of their various agendas around the globe. The think tanks elite set up and continue to fund have millions of dollars in annual budget. The big think tanks have the monetary power and the outreach and easily undermine the smaller think tanks. It doesn’t matter which party comes to power, the ideas, strategies and policies come from these same think tanks. As researcher Laurence H. Shoup writes regarding CFR, the most influential think tank in the world, in his book Wall Street’s Think Tank: The Council on Foreign Relations and the Empire of Neoliberal Geopolitics, 1976-2014 – ” The think tank of monopoly-finance capital, the Council on Foreign Relations is the world’s most powerful private organization. The CFR is the ultimate networking, socializing, strategic-planning, and consensus-forming institution of the U.S. capitalist class. It is the central “high command” organization of the plutocracy that runs the country and much of the world. ”
CFR is just one think tank at the elite’s disposal.
These think tanks plan out everything in advance. As mentioned earlier they have think tanks working on everything like environment, urbanization, immigration and even population control like the Optimum Population Trust now called Population Matters. Think tanks are the brain trusts of the shadow government and what we see happening now was all planned by these think tanks. (such things like urbanization, environmental treaties, privatization, trade deals, open borders, digital society, economic reforms, welfare schemes etc).

Many significant things have emerged from these think tanks. Here are just a few examples.

Council on Foreign Relations: United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund- Following the war’s outbreak, the Council on Foreign Relations launched a massive War and Peace Studies project to explore the desirable foundations of postwar peace. The participants in this effort ultimately produced 682 memoranda for the State Department on topics ranging from the occupation of Germany to the creation of the United Nations. (Source- Richard N. Haass)
Designs for International Monetary Fund and the World Bank emerged from the same study project. Read more here on CFR and the creation of IMF and World Bank.

Brookings Institution: The Marshall Plan- When Congress began to craft the European aid program proposed by Marshall, Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, contacted Brookings President Harold G. Moulton and asked for the Institution’s help.Brookings “immediately responded in the highest spirit of cooperation and diverted its entire staff to this inquiry,” In less than four weeks, on January 22, 1948, Brookings produced a 20-page report, containing eight specific recommendations for the structure, focus, and operating procedures of the Marshall Plan, which was officially named the European Recovery Program. (Source- Brookings Institution)

The Heritage Foundation and Reagan: When President Reagan took office in 1981, he quickly gave every member of his cabinet an 1,100-page book from the Heritage Foundation, Mandate for Leadership, that provided an outline for conservative principles he wished to enact. Of its 2,000 recommendations, roughly 60% were accepted. (Source- Brookings article)

In 1992 a report by think tanks IIE and the Carnegie Endowment proposing an “economic security council.” The incoming Clinton administration implemented this proposal in creating a National Economic Council (a body that continues today). (Source- Richard N. Haass)

The RAND Corporation played a prominent role in the Cold War. The Club of Rome was behind the environmental movement.
New think tanks are formed for the need of the hour, like the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) which was a neoconservative think tank formed in 1997 and was responsible for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was dissolved it in 2006 after it had served its purpose.

Brezinski at a CSIS event

This is how the process works, both domestic and foreign policies are devised by these big think tanks, next the government ministers and officials who are also members of these think tanks, just implement these policies and finally the corporate media sells these policies to the unsuspecting public. Public opinion is necessary to back up these policies, especially those which have to do with wars and radical changes. Corporate media also has ties to these same think tanks. Media owners, editors and journalists are CFR members and also hold membership in other think tanks as well.
Another key point to mention is that these big think tanks like CFR, AEI, Brookings, CSIS, Trilateral Commision etc are interconnected. The big think tanks are closely knit together, through common founders, interlocking directorates, cross membership of people, similar sources of funding.
In this way we have a parallel government and the whole idea of democracy is under question. Think tanks are not accountable to the general public, they only answer to their Donors (which generally includes corporations, foundations and wealthy individuals). So another way to look at this process is – your country’s public policies are brought to you by Fortune 500 corporations, elite grant making foundations like Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Carnegie Foundation and billionaires like Rothchild, Buffet, Soros etc.

Classifying think tanks

Like their definition and many other things related to them, there is no generally consensus among scholars regarding how to classify think tanks. Here is how I categorize think tanks. Based on location, affiliation, political orientation and area of research. The most precise way to classify them would be by their field of expertise or areas of research. Location, affiliation and political orientation are helpful but don’t tell much about them.

By Location- American think tank, Canadian think tank, British think tank etc. They can have branches in other countries as well. Some American think tanks are Council on Foreign Relations, RAND, Hudson Institute. Examples of some British think tank can be Chatham House, Adam Smith Institute, Demos.

By Affiliation- Are they affiliated to the government, university, political party or some other organization. Some examples

By Area of Research- What is their main focus. What research they specialize in. Areas like Foreign Policy and International Affairs, Economics, Environmental, Defense and Security, Immigration etc. Although they can and do have multiple areas of research. RAND for example researches many areas including education, economics, social policy etc but nevertheless its main focus is Defense & Security. Some examples

Think Tank Networks
Think tanks can even form networks and work together. Below are few think tank networks.
Network of Democracy Research Institutes
Atlas Network
State Policy Network
Stockholm Network

History of think tanks

Independent policy research organizations date back to the 19th century. The Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI) was founded in 1831 in London. The left leaning Fabian Society was formed in 1884 in London as well.
The oldest American think tank, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, was founded in Washington, D.C. in 1910 by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.
The Brookings Institution was founded shortly thereafter in 1916 by Robert S. Brookings
The Council on Foreign Relations was founded in 1921.
For most of the 20th century, independent public policy institutes that performed research and provided advice concerning public policy were found primarily in the United States, with a much smaller number in Canada, the UK and Western Europe. Although think tanks existed in Japan for some time, they generally lacked independence, having close associations with government ministries or corporations. There has been a veritable proliferation of “think tanks” around the world that began during the 1980s as a result of globalization, the end of the Cold War, and the emergence of transnational problems. Two-thirds of all the think tanks that exist today were established after 1970 and more than half were established since 1980. (source-wiki)

Kerry speaking at Carnegie Endowment, the oldest think tank in US.

Funding of think tanks

Corporations and philanthropic foundations are the main sources of revenue for most of the big think tanks. Think tanks can although have other sources of funding that includes governments, wealthy individuals, endowments, also they derive their income from sales of their books, journals and other publications.

Funding of the big think tanks.
If you will check out the annual reports and donor list that is issued by the big think tanks, you will always find the name of big corporations and foundations. Below are just some of them, also apart from noticing fortune 500 Corporations as donors, also notice the names of the elite foundations such as Carnegie Corporation of New York (Carnegie Foundation), Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Rockefeller Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation etc.

Think tank Personnel

Board of Directors and members of think tanks include people from many different professions.

High level government officials- Leading politicians, diplomats, bureaucrats are members such as Brzezinski, Kissinger, Madeleine Albright etc have been board of directors and members of a number of think tanks. Presidents from Nixon to Obama have hired individuals from think tanks to fill positions in their administrations. This is another role of the big think tanks, to provide officials for the new government in Washington.

Corporate Executives- People from fortune 500 corporations are right there.

Academics- Professors and Scholars, especially from Ivy League Universities.

Journalists- All the renowned journalists are CFR members.

Officials from International Organizations- High ranking officials from United Nations, World Bank, IMF etc

Members may even include corporations and other institutions- CFR and Atlantic Council have corporate members.

Many of the elitists are head of these think tanks and they and their associates also serve as board of directors. David Rockefeller has been the head and board of director of CFR, PIIE, Trilateral Commission. His aides and associates such as Zbigniew Brzezinski and Peter George Peterson have headed and have been members of many think tanks (like PIIE, Trilateral Commision, CSIS, RAND, CFR, ICG).

The bigger think tanks have on board very Influential people from various fields.
Executives of corporations, diplomats, journalists, academics etc. Even senior government officials are members and in this way these think tanks are directly linked to policy makers.
Take for example the board of directors of Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE).

This is clearly a highly influential network of people. PIIE is just one example, all big think tanks have this type of board of directors.

Think tanks market their Ideas

Think tanks not only develop ideas but also disseminates them. They intend to influence both the government policy makers and the the general public. For think tanks advocacy is as important as research. Think tanks are at the forefront in the battle of ideas. What they research is not kept in complete secrecy and they do publish their research findings and policy recommendations. Ideas are marketed through their publications and digital content. They have their own journals, magazines, they publish monographs, memorandums, books, policy papers, reports, write articles on their website, they make audio and video content, they organize conferences, seminars, panel discussion, workshops etc. The big thanks like CFR also invite world leaders to speak at their institution. Policy makers are their prime target. They seek to provide advice directly to officials in government departments and agencies and through congressional hearings and testimonies.

Another way think tanks tend to influence the public is by their media presence. The scholars from think tanks write articles in renowned newspapers and are also regularly invited by mainstream media for their expert opinion, analysis & commentary. You will notice people from these big think tanks on news channels very often. This is how they influence both policy makers and the public. They compete with others not only in the policy making arena but also in the realm of public opinion.

Tax-Exempt Foundations are one of the powerful tools used by the ruling elite. Elite grant making foundations like Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, Carnegie Foundation etc have been prominent in shaping our society. Although their influence has been largely ignored by the media and academia. The 1953 Reece Committee unraveled a lot of truth about these grant making foundations. Since then both the number of these foundations and the scope of their activities has drastically increased, new foundations such as Bill & Melinda gates foundation and Soros Open Society Foundations have joined the old elite foundations like Ford and Carnegie.

The Special Committee to investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations and Comparable Organizations was appointed by House Resolution 217, 83rd Congress, 1st Session (adopted July 27, 1953), to study and determine whether tax-exempt educational and philanthropic foundations and comparable organizations were using their resources for the purposes for which they were established and not for any “un-American and subversive activities; political purposes; propaganda or attempts to influence legislation” The investigation was to be completed and a report filed by January, 1955, with an initial appropriation of $50,000 and the expectation of more the following year. Said report, was filed with the House of Representatives, 83rd Congress, 2nd Session, as Union Calendar #926, Report #2681 and is commonly known as the “Reece Report,” after B. Carroll Reece of Tennessee, who served as Chairman to the Special Committee. Because of the politically sensitive nature of the findings of the committee, subsequent funding was not forthcoming for the second year of the investigations and the report was filed December 16, 1954. (Source- Pavlov’s Children by Ann Wilson).

The investigation was attacked by both the liberal and conservative press and was deemed as unnecessary by them. The findings of the Reece Committee were very revealing. It was found out that the big foundations were promoting internationalism and collectivism. By their subversive funding activities they posed a clear threat to american democracy and way of life of american people. The foundations were monumental in shaping the education and foreign policy of the United States and not only this but he foundations had their presence in all areas of society and in some areas had become more powerful than the federal government. Social Sciences were the main focus of these foundations. Despite these astounding discoveries no action was taken against the foundations and they continued to pursue their activities as usual. It was also discovered by the Reece committee that only do these big foundations like Ford, Rockefeller and Carnegie are interconnected and work together but also had lots of intermediaries like Social Science Research Council and smaller satellite foundations that were funded and used by them.

Norman Dodd was the director of research of the Reece Committee- Here is what he has to say about the tax-exempt foundations.

Rene Wormser who was the counsel to the Reece Committee later wrote an excellent book exposing these powerful foundations called Foundations their Power and Influence. Although it was written in 1958 but it is still pretty relevant today and a key source to understand the foundation world. You can download the full book here

Here are some excerpts from the book-

Whether foundation managers like to admit their influence or not, foundation giving most obviously has an enormous impact on education, on social thinking, and ultimately on political action.
This influence reaches the public through the schools and academies, through publicity, and through educational and other associations dedicated to public and international affairs.
The normal checks and balances in our public life can be annihilated through one-sided foundation support of the forces calling for change.

The foundation’s direct power is the power of money. The situation permits large foundations to exercise a profound influence upon public opinion and upon the course of public affairs. Great dispensing intermediary organizations control learned journals and university presses; they hold the key to academic publications and form an effective instrument of patronage.

Foundations were originally created to support existing institutions and to undertake certain “operating” functions. Today, and all too frequently, new recipient organizations are created by foundations, or with their subsidy, while needy and worthy existing institutions are ignored. The Ford Foundation in its early years created many sub funds for research and education which duplicated existing, similar organizations. In the twenties, several influential scientific and educational councils were set up jointly by cooperating foundation.

Favoritism for institutions and for scholars of a few such institutions tends to cause a migration of talent from the neglected to the pampered universities and gives a few schools of higher learning an elite character, at the same time reducing both the comparative prestige and the potential of the others.

A system of interlocks among major foundations and associated organizations has long existed in social-science research and education, It came about largely through the use of intermediary organizations to which foundations could donate wholesale funds for retailing grants. The system was so convenient and intriguing that clearing houses were brought into existence further to amplify this system of delegation.

The report of the Reece Committee described the “network or cartel” in the social sciences* as having five components. The first is a group of foundations, composed of the various Rockefeller and Carnegie foundadons, The Ford Foundation (referred to as “a late comer but already partially integrated”), The Commonwealth Fund, The Maurice and Laura Falk Foundation, The Russell Sage Foundation, and others.

The second, component consists of the “intermediaries” or ‘clearing houses,” such as:
The American Council of Learned Societies
The American Council on Education
The National Academy of Sciences
The National Education Association
The National Research Council
The National Science Foundation
The Social Science Research Council
The Progressive Education Association
The John Dewey Society
The Institute of Pacific Relations
The League for Industrial Democracy
The American Labor Education Service

The learned societies in the several “social sciences” were listed as the third component.
The fourth consists of the learned journals in these areas.
The fifth was “certain individuals in strategic positions, such as certain professors in the institutions which receive the preference of the combine,”

In testifying before the Reece Committee, Professor Rowe repeated his deep concern over the tendency of the great foundations to create guided research projects instead of supporting the individual researcher in whatever direction he wished to go. As Professor Rowe put it: “What is a professor to think when people with money come along and tell his university that what he is doing there is useless and ought to be liquidated, because it is being done much better some place else?”

There is much evidence that, to a substantial degree, foundations have become the directors of education in the United States. To what extent this has been brought about by conditions attached to financial support since the early activities of the Carnegie and Rockefeller foundations, it is difficult to assess. We do know that their first efforts to reform the colleges were only a beginning.

Research and experimental stations were established at selected Universities, notably Columbia, Stanford, and Chicago. Here some of the worst mischief in recent education was born. In these Rockefeller and Carnegie established vineyards worked many of the principal characters in the story of the suborning of American education, Here foundations nurtured some of the most ardent academic advocates of upsetting the American system and supplanting it with a Socialist state.

Mr. Sargent gave convincing evidence that efforts to use the schools to bring us to a new order, collectivist in nature, followed a plan and that this plan was supported by foundation money. He cited the Conclusions and Recommendations of the Commission on Social Studies of The American Historical Association. The American Historical Association is the professional association of historians and as such one of the organizations Participating in The Social Science Research Council. The work of its Commission was financed by The Carnegie Corporation to the extent of $34o,ooo. The Conclusions was the last section of the Commission’s final report, produced in 1934. It had an enormous and lasting impact upon education in our country.
The Conclusions heralds the decline of capitalism in the United States, It does not oppose the movement for radical change’ It accepts it as inevitable:
Cumulative evidence supports the conclusion, that in the United States as in other countries, the age of individualism and laissez faire in economy and government is closing and that a new age of collectivism is emerging.

New textbooks were required to take the place of the standard and objective works used in the schools. These new books could be used to indoctrinate the students, to give them the pathological view of their country upon which sentiment for collectivism could be built.

The Reece Committee concluded that because of the essential identity of evolutionary and revolutionary socialism and communism, much of the radicalism which has been supported and financed by foundations was “subversive,” It expressed itself as follows:
Foundation spokesmen have emphatically denied any support of subversion. We question, however, whether in such denials they did not misinterpret the meaning of the term’ ‘subversion.” Their denials were justified in so far as they are related to the direct support of Communism, but these spokesmen were well aware of the nature of some of the evidence produced before this Committee which showed that foundations had frequently supported those who wish to undermine our society. Their denials of subversion in relation to such activities are without merit.
What does the term “subversion” mean? In contemporary usage and practice, it does not refer to outright revolution, but to a promotion of tendencies which lead, in their inevitable consequences, to the destruction of principles through penetration or alienation, Subversion, in modern society, is not a sudden, cataclysmic explosion, but a gradual undermining, of persistent chipping away at foundations upon which beliefs rest.

Foundation Activity has nowhere had a greater impact than in the field of foreign affairs. It has conquered public opinion and has largely established the international-political goals of our country. A few major foundations with internationalist tendencies created or fostered a varied group of organizations which now dominate the research, the education, and the supply of experts in the field. Among such instruments are the Council on Foreign Relations, the Foreign Policy Association, the Institute of Pacific Relations, the United Nations Association, and the conferences and seminars held by American universities on international relations and allied subjects.

The influence of the foundation complex in internationalism has reached far into government, into the policy-making circles of Congress and into the State Department.

At least one foreign foundation has had a strong influence on our foreign policy. The Rhodes Scholarship Fund of Great Britain, created to improve England’s international public relations but not registered here as a foreign agent, has gained great influence in the United States for British ideas. It has accomplished this by annually selecting a choice group of promising young men for study in England. The usually Anglophile alumni of this system are to be found in eminent positions in legislation, administration and education and in the ranks of American foundation officials. Dean Rusk, president of The Rockefeller Foundation, and several of the staff members of that foundation are Rhodes scholars. Mr. Henry Allen Moe, the director of the Guggenheim foundation, and O. C. Carmichael, former president of the Carnegie foundation, are Rhodes Scholars.

Just as there have been interlocks and a “concentration of power” in education and in social-science research in domestic areas, there has been a similar combination in the field of foreign policy.

The major components of the concentration in internationalism have been The Carnegie Corporation, The Carnegie Endowment For International Peace, The Rockefeller Foundation, and, recently, The Ford Foundation.